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Socio-economic differentiation in Burkina Faso’s cotton sector

ESS faculty member Leslie Gray's (with co-author Brian Dowd) newly published paper examines how liberalization reforms in Burkina Faso’s cotton sector have led to socio-economic differentiation.This research helps us understand the differences among Africa farmers, particularly with respect to their access to land, inputs and broader social institutions and networks.In particular, new grower cooperatives have become a site for wealthier farmers to exert influence on how debts are repaid and inputs distributed, largely to the detriment of poorer producers.